Hello everyone!
I will be applying to the Graduate program Global Studies (Master) this August and I’m wondering if you guys can share some most up-to-date experience about Sophia?
Like, what is your experience with the school, classes, and student support?
How are the accommodations/dormitories?
How is the acceptance rate in the pass years? Especially for the English-based program?
Fyi, I am at my last semester of bachelor so I’m not sure my exact GPA but most of my grades fall around B+, A-. My major is Japanese Studies (pls don’t come at me 🙁 ). If necessary, I have N3 and almost passed N2.
TIA 🤍
2 comments
They only accept a fixed number of students every semester so you only need to beat the other people that applied. I feel like they publish acceptance rates if you want to go back to 2018 or some year that might be comparable. The only tip I have is that if you want to destroy the competition try and get a glowing recommendation from someone ~~in Japan~~ who is Japanese.
I don’t really have up to date information but because the Global Studies program is so small you’ll need to work harder to make friends. Try joining some circles.
The official list:
[https://www.sophia.ac.jp/jpn/studentlife/kagai/clublist.html](https://www.sophia.ac.jp/jpn/studentlife/kagai/clublist.html)
A search engine narrowed down to ones focused on international students:
[https://circlesagashi.com/circles?area_name=tokyo&canpas_name=sophia_univ&circle_category=international](https://circlesagashi.com/circles?area_name=tokyo&canpas_name=sophia_univ&circle_category=international)
I actually just got accepted to this program last week and am going in September so I can’t say much on how the program actually is but I can speak a bit to the application process. For me I had an 80% average in my undergrad so not bad but not great. I think it’s a bit easier for native and fluent English speakers to get in as the admission selections are (from what I’ve been told) done by professors in the program and a couple of them are native English speakers so there may be bias. For my references I had 2 from professors in my undergrad, one in their recommended format and one in a regular format in addition to a reference from my employer. You could also reach out to profs there while you apply, if you find a prof that you really their field of research they may be more inclined to recommend you for the program. The university recommends doing this tho I didn’t.